The Second Gospel Sermon

Peter led the other apostles in making the first gospel sermon as recorded in Acts 2.  Then we get the second one in Acts 3.  Peter, still in Jerusalem, had just healed a lame man and the people were wild with amazement.  Verse 11 says, "Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon's, greatly amazed.  So when  Peter saw it, he responded to the people: 'Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this?  Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go.' "  Peter here does two things: 1) he makes it clear that he and the apostles are not the power; it is God.  And 2) he convicts them of their wrongdoing; they killed the Savior. 

He gives the solution to the problem in verse 19: "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things...."  This is advice not only to these people, but to us as well.  We need to give ourselves completely to Him.

Then he quotes Moses in verse 22, "For Moses truly said to the fathers, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren.  Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you.  And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.'  Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days.  You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'  To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from you iniquities."

Galatians chapter 3 tells us that the "seed of Abraham" is Jesus Christ.  And it is through Jesus that all the earth is blessed; blessed in being able to receive all that Jesus is, all that He did for us, His grace and His salvation, and His peace.  We are the heirs of all these spiritual blessings.  Praise God.  

Thank you for reading again.  Bless you!